Sir Nga¯tata Love bankrupted
Sir Nga¯tata Love has fallen further, being made bankrupt.
Love, 81, was a powerful figure in Ma¯ oridom and a former chairman of the Wellington Tenths and Port Nicholson Block Settlement trusts.
As well as being a professor in business studies, he spent a term as chief executive of Te Puni Ko¯kiri, the Ministry of Ma¯ori Development.
But in October 2016, in declining health, he was sentenced to two years and six months’ jail on a charge of obtaining property by deception, as a result of how he used his chairman’s position over a $1.5 million payment from developers wanting to build on Tenths Trust land.
The trial was told that the money went to reduce the mortgage for a Plimmerton property where Love lived for a time with the late Lorraine Skiffington.
The sentencing judge said that before the offending, for 40 years Love had devoted his life selflessly to the advancement of Ma¯ ori.
In late 2017, he was sued for outstanding fees owed to the lawyers who represented him during his criminal trial. The District Court made an order against him for $248,000, plus interest.
Stuff was refused access to the court file about the bankruptcy proceedings but they were brought by Napier law firm Bisson Moss, which also made the claim against him in the District Court. It is understood the bankruptcy figure follows on from the District Court case. Despite at least two delays when an associate judge in the High Court in Wellington yesterday was told Love was getting the funds and the bankruptcy case was likely to be settled, when the matter was called in court there was no lawyer to represent Love, and he did not personally appear.
Associate Judge Kenneth Johnston asked Emmet Maclaurin, the lawyer for Bisson Moss, whether attempts to settle had ‘‘gone nowhere’’. Maclaurin confirmed that was the position.